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Thoughts about developer laptop 2018

12 points by drKarl ↗ HN
I need a new laptop in 2018, I want to use either MacOS X or Linux. I've used Macbook PROs and I like them but they're limited to 16GB of RAM.

I liked the concept of Purism Librem laptops, but since they have to disable ME it's somewhat ageing hardware at a premium price. Also limited to 16GB.

I liked the System 76 Galago Pro since it's a good balance between power and portability on the System 76/Clevo line, but I read they have terrible battery life since they have an extra SATA bay so they come with a very small battery.

There's the much hyped Dell XPS Developer Edition, which again it maxes out at 16GB RAM.

Same applies to Lenovo X1 Carbon.

So we may wonder, why all these laptops max out at 16GB RAM? Because Kaby Lake supports DDR3 but not LPDDR4 (Low Power RAM which draws less battery), so they use LPDDR3 which has lower density and maxes out at 16GB.

Coffe Lake doesn't improve on this, and 10nm architecture Cannon Lake has been pushed to end of 2018 (so Ice Like eveb more) so if you can wait to get new laptop until 2019 great. If you need a new laptop on 2018...

Then they showed T480 and T480s on CES which ia still Kaby Lake but uses DDR4 (like the Galago Pro) so it can get 32GB, and has a 2 battery system which means you can hot swap your battery, neat!! And with the extended battery it gets impressive battery life. Good selection of ports, Thinshutter to blind the webcam, Wi-Fi AC 2xMIMO, option of SIM slot, SD slot...

Downsides is not sexy like a MacBook Pro, a XPS DE or a X1 Carbon, as it's slightly bigger, thicker and heavier than those... but not by that much!!!

T470 had good compatibility with Linux, it's to be expected T480 will too.

Your thoughts?

8 comments

[ 6.0 ms ] story [ 31.8 ms ] thread
DogRunner
I am missing your main requirements to the laptop. I would rather list them up in first place and then decide what you need.

Dell also has nice alternatives to the XPS series. The precision mobile workstations can be upgraded to 32 and even 64 Gb.

TomMarius
To me it seems like he wants a Macbook Pro or similar, but with more RAM.

I also recommend these Dells.

AlexITC
I have 1 year with a precision 3510 with 16 GB, I know it could be expanded but I haven't required it, it has worked quite well until now with the plus that it is ubuntu certified, running ubuntu 16.04 and it works quite well, another point is that I bought it with the biggest battery and when I tried using just the browser, the battery lasted around 10 hours, using all of my software for my daily work, the battery should last more than 6 hours if I'm not running CPU intensive tasks.
summadat
The regular Macbook, aka "Macbook Adorable". Yes, 8GB RAM, but..NVME storage, awesome little machine. I would keep it in OS X since Linux may not take full advantage of the screen. Linux definetely won't be able to pull of the per-application DPI scaling that OS X does.
phaus
He wants something with power and lots of RAM, so your recommendation is an Apple netbook?
dman
Dell Precision 5520 - you can get it with a quad core cpu, 32 gigs of ram, can come with or without discrete graphics and you have a good choice of fast ssds.
akulbe
Dell XPS 9560 will take 32GB of RAM. The full spec model works very nice.
quantummkv
This is pretty much the best laptop I have ever used. It has everything. Ports, RAM, Processor, Battery, sleek design and a gtx 1050 to boot. You cannot go wrong with it.